System and method for selecting and purchasing stocks via a global computer network

ABSTRACT

The invention is in the field of using a computer to provide automated investment allocation advice, selection of investment securities, customization of the automated advice, execution of investment securities, maintenance/monitoring of investment portfolios and rebalancing of investment portfolios. A user is connected to the Internet. The user connects to the portfolio management program (PMP) host computer through the Internet. The user completes a questionnaire that the PMP uses to generate a suitable investment allocation and specific portfolio strategy recommendation. The user reviews the strategy and specific information about the strategy. The information is transmitted across the Internet to the user. The information transmitted includes historic and/or hypothetical performance, historical and/or hypothetical holdings, current securities selections of the strategy, and a description of the strategy&#39;s selection methodology. The user, after making appropriate reviews, makes a decision to purchase the instruments in that portfolio. Now the user sees a list of instruments provided by the PMP host computer. The list of stocks is ordered by the degree to which they satisfy the requirements of the strategy. The user can then make the decision whether to accept, reject, or replace any individual security in the generated list or add an individual security. For example, the user can reject a security in the strategy and ask the PMP host computer to replace it with the next security that best fits. Once the user has approved the content of the proposed portfolio, the user enters an amount that the user will invest in accordance with the strategy. The PMP will allocate the investment amount across all the securities in the strategy. The user may authorize the PMP to purchase these selections through their qualified broker. The user may monitor the performance of these instruments subsequent to purchase through the PMP. The user may receive news, alerts, and/or research related materials for these instruments through the PMP. The user may authorize the PMP to rebalance their investments periodically to an updated list of instruments matching the selected strategy. The user may select a rebalance method that optimizes the tax consequences or the strategy adherence. The user has the ability to accept, reject, or replace any individual security in the generated list or add an individual security as part of the rebalance. The user can set up automatic email notification of rebalance dates or to have the PMP vote the proxy of the shares. The owner of the PMP host computer collects a payment for this service.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This is a Continuation-in-Part Application claiming priority under 35U.S.C. Section 120 from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/433,531filed Nov. 3, 1999 now abandoned, which in turn is aContinuation-in-Part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/360,003filed Jul. 23, 1999 now U.S. Pat. No. 6,484,151.

COPYRIGHT RESERVATION

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialwhich is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patentdisclosure, as it appears in the official patent file or records, butotherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention is in the field of using a computer to provide automatedallocation advice, selection of investment securities, customization ofautomated advice, execution of investment securities,maintenance/monitoring of investment portfolios and rebalancing ofinvestment portfolios by individuals.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Designed as a possible replacement for mutual funds for individualinvestors, the invention allows individual investors to participate inan online platform that provides customizable, actionable advice at lowcost for the general retail consumer. Because of individual ownership,many of the tax disadvantages associated with mutual fund investment areavoided.

For example: on day one, an individual invests $10,000 in a mutual fund.On day two, the mutual fund liquidates some assets acquired prior to dayone, which incurs a capital gains tax on the part of all investors as ofday one. Thus, this individual is burdened with the tax consequences ofa gain which she never received.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention is in the field of using a computer to provide automatedinvestment allocation advice, selection of investment securities,customization of the automated advice, execution of investmentsecurities, maintenance/monitoring of investment portfolios andrebalancing of investment portfolios. A user is connected to theInternet or other communication channel via a personal computer,terminal, personal digital assistant, cell phone or other communicationdevice. Via the communication channel, the user connects to a portfoliomanagement program (PMP) running on a computer. The user completes aquestionnaire that the PMP uses to generate a suitable investmentallocation and specific portfolio strategy recommendation. The userreviews the strategy and specific information about the strategy. Theinformation is transmitted to the user. The information transmittedincludes historic and/or hypothetical performance, historical and/orhypothetical holdings, current securities selections of the strategy,and a description of the strategy's selection methodology.

The user, after making appropriate reviews, makes a decision to purchasethe instruments in that portfolio. Now the user sees a list ofinstruments provided by the PMP computer. The list of stocks is orderedby the degree to which they satisfy the requirements of the strategy.The user can then make the decision whether to accept, reject, orreplace any individual security in the generated list or add anindividual security. For example, the user can reject a security in thestrategy and ask the PMP host computer to replace it with the nextsecurity that best fits. Once the user has approved the content of theproposed portfolio, the user enters an amount that the user will investin accordance with the strategy. The PMP will allocate the investmentamount across all the securities in the strategy. The user may authorizethe PMP to purchase these selections through a qualified broker. Theuser may monitor the performance of these instruments subsequent topurchase through the PMP. The user may receive news, alerts, and/orresearch-related materials for these instruments through the PMP. Theuser may authorize the PMP to rebalance the investments periodically toan updated list of instruments matching the selected strategy. The usermay select a rebalance method that optimizes the tax consequences or thestrategy adherence. The user has the ability to accept, reject, orreplace any individual security in the generated list or add anindividual security as part of the rebalance. The user can set upautomatic email notification of rebalance dates or to have the PMP votethe proxy of the shares. The operater of the PMP system would typicallycollect a payment for this service.

The advantages of this present invention over existing investmentmethods are numerous:

-   -   1. The cost to a consumer for investing in a diversified,        advised portfolio is dramatically less than that of mutual funds        and similar investment vehicles. Rather than fees that are        levied as a percentage of assets or based upon performance, fees        under the basic implementation of this system are a flat rate.    -   2. Flexibility to the consumer is greatly enhanced over other        current advised portfolio systems. Consumers have the ability        customize the recommendations of an Investment Product to remove        instruments the consumer does not wish to purchase. While        advised about the implications of customization, the consumer is        no longer bound to an “all or none” principle of investing.        -   Tax treatment is vastly superior to mutual funds and other            advised portfolio systems available to average consumers.            One of the largest problems of mutual fund investment is the            potential for embedded capital gains that will be            distributed to all shareholders of record whether or not            they enjoyed the gain from the stock being sold. For            example: on day one, investor buys $100,000 of shares in a            mutual fund. On day two, the mutual fund liquidates some            long-held security (e.g. 1990 Microsoft) and takes a tax            hit. Our day one investor has not enjoyed any of the benefit            of increase in price of the liquidated asset but takes the            full hit of the tax consequence on the value of the mutual            fund's shares on day two.        -   As highlighted above, the investor does not carry the            taxable burden of gains realized by others. Furthermore, as            an individual portfolio, the PMP carries the ability to            monitor tax lots, which allow better matching of losses            against gains. This system allows the consumer to reap the            benefits of long-term capital gains versus short-term gains            in an automated fashion through rebalancing activities if            desired.    -   3. Ease of use. The current system is the first of its kind in        aggregating a complete closed loop of service to the user,        namely of product description, examination, selection,        customization, execution, monitoring and rebalancing in an        automated fashion over the Internet, with the additional        advantages listed above.    -   4. Another benefit the present invention offers individual is        that by creating their own diversified portfolio, they will not        be affected by the actions of other shareholders. For example,        on day one investor buys $100,000 of shares in a mutual fund.        The next day, a sufficient minority of current shareholders of        that fund decide, for whatever reason, to liquidate their        holdings, the NAB of the fund would be materially affected as        the portfolio manager would be forced to liquidate current        holdings to meet the redemptions. Users of the present invention        will face no such calamity because the diversified portfolio is        unique to them.

A preferred embodiment of this invention is to provide users with aplurality of Strategies, or quantitative methodologies of securityselection from a universe of securities, from which they may thencustomize and invest. While preferred embodiments of these methodologiesare quantitative screens and factoring of a fundamental and marketdatabase such as Compustat®, other embodiments of quantitativemethodologies applicable to the present invention would includeregression analysis, adaptive expectations, attribution analysis andsimilar models on this or a similar database.

Preferred embodiments of these methodologies include stand-alonestrategies designed to outperform a given index or similar benchmark, aswell as those designed to mimic or clone indices, funds, and similarbenchmarks. However, other embodiments of this invention may includemaking the investment in accordance with non-quantitative products suchas newsletters and recommendations from active managers.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A is a representation of the connections between a user, the PMPcomputer, and online brokers.

FIG. 1B is a block diagram illustrating the relationship of the partiesto various transactions in accordance with the invention.

FIG. 1C is a flowchart illustrating how the PMP guides a user throughcreating a subscription to the PMP as well as facilitating opening anaccount with a qualified broker.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating aspects of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating aspects of the present invention.

FIGS. 4A, 4B and 4C illustrate what would be shown on a user's screen inthe selection of an investment strategy.

FIGS. 5A, 5B, 5C, 5D and 5E illustrate what would be shown on a user'sscreen in connection with a particular investment strategy.

FIGS. 6A, 6B, 6C, 6D and 6E illustrate what would be shown on a user'sscreen in connection with various market trends.

FIG. 7 illustrates what would be shown on a user's screen with theoption to purchase.

FIGS. 8, 9, 10 and 11, respectively, are flowcharts illustrating aspectsof the present invention.

FIGS. 12A, 12B and 12C illustrate what would be shown on a user's screenshowing the holdings of a particular account.

FIG. 13 is a representation of the options available to a user whencommunicating with the PMP computer.

FIG. 14 is a flowchart illustrating aspects of the present invention.

FIG. 15 is a flowchart continuing from FIG. 14, illustrating aspects ofthe present invention.

FIG. 16A is a flowchart illustrating aspects of the present invention.

FIG. 16B is a flowchart continuing from FIG. 16A, illustrating aspectsof the present invention.

FIG. 17 illustrates what would be shown on a user's screen comparing aclone strategy and the S&P 500.

FIGS. 18A and 18B diagrammatically represent ratings services as relatedto various factors.

FIG. 19 shows a computer code implementation of an aggregation method.

DEFINITIONS AND BACKGROUND

Internet: As used herein, refers to the current Internet or equivalentglobal communications network as an example of a communication channel,and also contemplates private “intranets,” WANs, and their wired orwireless functional equivalents.

PMP: Portfolio Management Program. The Portfolio Management Program mayreside on the user's machine, on a remote server or servers, or both asappropriate. The Portfolio Management Program is provided with theability to communicate with the user through a customary user interface,preferably through an Internet browser program (such as InternetExplorer or Netscape). The program is created in accordance withstandard programming practices as known by programmers of Internetapplications and Internet stock-trading applications.

Aggregation: count the number of occurrences of an individual stockwithin the universe of strategies; capture the number of times that eachoccurs in the universe of strategies; sort the list in descending orderand return the result.

Strategy: See, for example, James P. O'Shaughnessy's U.S. Pat. No.5,978,778 and his books What Works On Wall Street and Invest Like theBest (McGraw-Hill), the disclosures of which are incorporated herein byreference.

The preferred Strategy is a quantitative methodology for stock selectionwhose efficacy may be judged in part by a historical backtest of thismethodology on a database such as S&P Compustat® to judge itshypothetical returns. While the preferred embodiment of thesemethodologies will be quantitative screens and factoring of afundamental and market database such as Compustat®, other embodiments ofquantitative methodologies could include regression analysis, adaptiveexpectations, attribution analysis and similar models on this or asimilar database. The preferred embodiment of these methodologiesincludes stand-alone strategies designed to outperform a given index orsimilar benchmark, as well as those designed to mimic or clone indices,funds, and similar benchmarks. However, other embodiments of thisinvention may include the investment in non-quantitative products suchas newsletters and recommendations from active managers.

Seasonality: This concept illustrates one aspect that time places in therole of investing in a strategy. While two people A and B follow therecommendations of a strategy for 10 years, the performance generatedfrom following those recommendations may be different for B than Abecause they did not investment did not cover the same point in time.Beyond general movements of the market, a strategy may recommenddifferent stocks at different points in time, such that person A whoinvested for 10 years, beginning on January 1 of each year experienced adifferent return than person B, who invested for 10 years, beginningFebruary 1 of each year. Examining various seasonalities, or startingpoints, provides more timely/accurate information to the consumer.

Disclaimers: The actual pages, screens, and agreements will be ladenwith appropriate disclaimers as designed by lawyers and stockbrokersskilled in the art of crafting such disclaimers.

Example stocks, brokers, mutual funds and indices: While there mayactually be companies called 3M and Walmart and IBM and Philip Morrisand E-Trade, the performance numbers stated herein are fictional. TheMELJIM MF and MARBRI MF funds, for example, are fictional.

Introduction to Strategy Investing

Knowing how a particular investment strategy performed historicallygives one the vital information one needs on its risk, variability, andpersistence of returns. Before the commencement of the work of James P.O'Shaughnessy, there was no widely available comprehensive guide towhich strategies are long-term winners and which are not. He had accessto the historical S&P Compustat database of United States stock marketinformation: forty-three years of results for Wall Street's most popularinvestment strategies.

It took the combination of fast computers and huge databases to provethat a portfolio's returns are essentially determined by the factorsthat define the portfolio. Before computers, it was almost impossible todetermine what strategy guided the development of a portfolio. Thenumber of underlying factors (e.g. price-to-earnings ratio, dividendyield) that an investor could consider seemed endless. The best onecould do was look at portfolios in the most general ways. Withcomputers, one can also test combinations of factors over long periodsof time, showing what one can expect in the future from any giveninvestment strategy.

History shows that traditional active management does not work. Themajority of actively managed funds do not beat the S&P 500. Passiveindex fund managers have seen their assets rise as a result, from $10billion in 1980 to over $250 billion in 1990.

It is very desirable to use an objective rule-based strategy and systemfor automating, to the extent practicable, the conduct of thisdecision-making.

The data presented by O'Shaughnessy in his books and in other patentapplications and soon-to-issue patents proves that the market clearlyand consistently rewards certain attributes (e.g., stocks with lowprice-to-sales ratios) and clearly and consistently punishes others(e.g. stocks with high price-to-sales ratios) over long periods of time.A paradox remains: tests show high return predictability, but 80 percentof traditionally managed mutual funds fail to beat the S&P 500. Modelsbeat human forecasters because they reliably and consistently apply thesame criteria time after time.

Stock market decisions and portfolio constructions are served by amethodical scientific method. Certain rules help in this process. First,all models must use explicitly stated rules without ambiguity orallowance for a private or unique interpretation of the rule. Second,the rule must be stated explicitly and publicly so anyone with the time,money, data, equipment and inclination can reproduce the results. Third,someone using the same rules and the same reliable database must get thesame results. Fourth, the results must be consistent over time;long-term results cannot owe all their benefits to a few years. Fifth,the rule must be intuitive and logical and not be derived from the data.

O'Shaughnessy used the S&P Compustat Active and Research Database from1950 through 1994. O'Shaughnessy used certain methods to evaluate howdifferent rules for constructing portfolios worked over these periods.Certain choices were made regarding size of the portfolio (50 stocks formost strategies), market capitalization (generally, requiring a minimumof $150 million), and annual rebalancing.

Size of the portfolio. As evaluated, stock portfolios contained 10, 25or 50 stocks. Researchers J. L. Evans and S. H. Archer found most of thebenefits of diversification come from as few as 16 stocks. One wants toavoid holding too many or too few stocks. Larger or smaller portfoliosare within the scope of the present invention.

Market Capitalization. O'Shaughnessy primarily studied two groups. Thefirst stock group includes only stocks with a market capitalization inexcess of $150 million (adjusted for inflation); it is called All Stocksthroughout this application. O'Shaughnessy chose $150 million afterconsulting a trader at a large Wall Street brokerage who felt it was theminimum necessary if he was investing $100 million in 50 stocks in 1995.This figure avoids focusing on tiny stocks and focuses only on thosestocks which a professional investor could by without running intoliquidity problems. A stock with a market capitalization of $27 millionin 1950 is the equivalent of a $150 million stock at the end of 1994.The second stock group includes larger, better-known stocks with marketcapitalizations greater than the database average (usually the top 16percent of the database by market capitalization); it is called LargeStocks throughout the application.

Annual Rebalancing. The portfolios studied are constructed andrebalanced annually. Stocks are equally weighted with no adjustment forother variables. For example, if $1,000,000 is invested in 50 stocks, a$20,000 investment is made in each stock. Dividends are re-invested inproportion with the original proportions. At the end of the year, all ofthe stocks may be sold and replaced with another fifty stocks that meetthe criteria of the strategy. Throughout the application, rebalancingrefers to this process. Of course, for tax purposes, an investor must becareful in rebalancing that one does not unnecessarily sell andreacquire shares of stock in an existing portfolio when performing therebalancing. A year was chosen since it is long enough to minimizeeffects of commissions and costs of rebalancing the portfolio. A term aslong as two years or as short as three months could be used as theperiod after which one rebalances the portfolio in accordance with someinvestment strategies.

The present invention can allow users to create portfolios that modelwinning strategies based on the real-time data as it exists in themarket at the time of the creation of the portfolio. In preferredembodiments, it is very inexpensive to the user and may revolutionizethe multi-trillion-dollar mutual fund industry.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

An illustrative example of the present invention will be described withreference to the accompanying drawings. Referring now to FIG. 1A, a user101 is connected to the Internet 102 or other communication channel viaa personal computer, terminal, personal digital assistant, or the like.The user 101 connects thereby to the computer running PMP 103. As shownin further detail in FIG. 6A, the user 101 reviews certain strategiesand their historic performance. The information is transmitted acrossthe Internet 102 to the user 101. The information transmitted includessuch information as historic performance, sample holdings, modeling howthe particular strategy and its holding has performed in the past.

The user 101, after making appropriate reviews, makes a decision topurchase the stocks named in that portfolio. The operator of the PMPhost computer 103 collects a payment for this service. This price ispreferably $29.95.

Now the user 101 sees a list of stocks provided by the PMP host computer103. The user 101 can then make the decision whether to accept or rejectany individual stock in the generated list. For example, if the user 101rejects the tenth stock in a ten-stock strategy, the PMP 103 presentsthe eleventh stock as a substitute, which may in turn also be rejected.Once the user 101 has approved the content of the proposed portfolio,the user 101 enters an amount that the user 101 will invest inaccordance with the strategy.

If the strategy has ten stocks, for example, and the user 101 invests$100,000, the user will have $99,970.05 to invest in the ten stocks or$9,997 per issue.

If the user 101 already has an account with an online broker 104, thenthe operator of the PMP system will receive a one-time fee from thatonline broker 104 when the user 101 purchases the portfolio through theonline broker 104. The one-time fee for referring to an existing accountis preferably $30.

If the user 101 does not have an account with an online broker 104, thenPMP 103 provides suggestions to select an online broker 104. Once theuser selects an online broker 104, the operator of the PMP will receivea one-time fee from that online broker 104 in the amount of $150. Sinceonline brokerages are currently spending about $400 for each accountthat opens with them, everyone wins. The operator of PMP gets paid, theinvestor gets a cheap basket trade, and the online brokerage gets a newclient. New clients—a) add to income through any margin trades; b) ownstocks that may be loaned out by the broker; c) receive credit card andother solicitations; d) increasing assets allowing the broker to bebetter able to borrow, obtain better financial deals, and increasedvelocity of trading. The broker also gets to put on the ‘white hat’ ofencouraging investors to be in the market for the ‘long term’ byproviding this type of instrument. The reality is that a portfolio ofthirty to forty stocks is more likely to generate trades than an accountwith less stocks, and so these accounts will be highly prized andperhaps fought over by online brokers. The present invention seeks todrive mid-tier investors online by providing low cost, tax savings,information, and control of the online portfolio. The present inventorswant to make the average Morningstar mutual fund a relatively expensiveway for an investor to achieve the benefits of a diverse portfolio.

Once the user 101 has an online broker account in which to trade andfunds have arrived, the user 101 decides to whether or not to buy thelist of stocks suggested by the PMP 103. If the user 101 does buy thestocks, the user 101 is presented with a customizable portfolio screenshowing all the holdings. See, for example, FIG. 12B. This informationis optionally stored on the fixed disk (hard drive) of the user'scomputer, on the computer that hosts the PMP 103, or preferably both.The user can then sign up for automatic notification of drop in price incertain stocks, place sell orders, etc. as necessary. In addition, theuser 101 can sign up for automatic proxy voting.

The user winds up with a balanced portfolio of stocks for $30. This ismuch cheaper than even the cheapest online brokerage charges, and muchcheaper than those charges made by traditional brokers. The user'sbalanced portfolio is akin to their own personal mutual fund, butwithout some of the disadvantages that plague those mutual funds.

As shown in FIG. 1B, an operator of a PMP system may, for example, beNetfolio, Inc. In such a system, the basic retail Netfolio portfoliomanagement service 2003 (via a PMP system) is provided to a customer2001, who is a person or family unit that maintains an subscription withNetfolio 2003, a trading account with the organization that providestrading services 2004 and on whose behalf securities are held by theprovider of custodial services 2005. Trading services 2004 are offeredby the trading arm of a broker-dealer. These services include, forexample, trade execution via the FIX protocol 2006, trade confirmation,etc. Custodial services 2005 are provided by the custodial unit of abroker dealer. In accordance with this aspect of the invention,custodial services 2005 are not necessarily provided by thebroker-dealer that provides the trading services 2004. The provider ofcustodial services 2005 provides books and records 2007 to Netfolio 2003and statementing 2008 to the customer 2001. The provider of tradingservices 2004 provides reporting 2009 to the customer 2001. Clearanceand settlement 2010 of trades are generated between the trading servicesprovider 2004 and custodial services provider 2005.

Turning back to FIG. 1A, the PMP system 103 is seen to providerecommendations in the form of strategies to the user 101 through theInternet 102. The PMP 103 also offers execution of those recommendationsthrough a broker 104 on behalf of the user 101. In this way, the user101 will interact with the broker 104 through the PMP 103.

In order to do this a user must first create a subscription with the PMPand have an account with a qualified broker if the user wishes the PMPto provide execution of its recommendations.

In FIG. 1C, this process is detailed. A user 101 may look at availablestrategies (strategy recommendations) and various content for free.However, to receive securities recommendations for investment that arethe products of applying said strategies to the current universe ofstocks in the marketplace, the user 101 must become a subscriber 109 tothe PMP 103 service. At each point where actionable securityrecommendations are to be given by the PMP 103, the PMP 103 willdetermine if the user 101 is a subscriber in evaluation 105. If not, thePMP 103 will offer the user 101 the opportunity to subscribe to one ofthe various levels of service offered by the PMP 103 in the subscribedecision 106. If the user declines to subscribe in decision 106, thenthe user 101 retains the status of user in result 107 and will notreceive security recommendations for investment. If the user 101 electsto subscribe in decision 106, then the PMP will subscribe them to thelevel of service of their choice in subscription process 108. Thecompletion of this process will designate the user with a subscriberstatus 109.

Subsequently, a subscriber 109 must have an account open with aqualified broker 104 if the subscriber 109 desires the PMP 103 toexecute trades on their behalf Determining if a subscriber 109 has anaccount open with a qualifying broker is PMP evaluation 110. If not, thePMP 103 offers to facilitate the creation of an account with a qualifiedbroker 104 through the account-open process 111. If the subscriber 109elects not to open an account, he retains the status of a subscriber asseen in 112, and will receive security recommendations but will have toexecute those recommendations outside the PMP 103. If the subscriber 109agrees, the PMP 103 will facilitate the opening of a brokerage accountwith a qualifying broker 104 in facilitation process 113. The result ofthis process is that the subscriber 109 becomes identified as both asubscriber and account holder 114.

Using the concepts of FIG. 1C, the process of receiving recommendationsfrom strategies is illustrated in FIG. 2. A user 101 who is on the PMPsystem 103 may choose to have the PMP 103 either present him with atailored allocation and recommendation or search among the plurality ofstrategies to create his own recommendation in decision 201.

If the user 101 elects the PMP 103 to present an allocation andrecommendation, the PMP 103 proceeds to the Profiling process 202. Inthe Profiling process 202 the user 101 is given a risk questionnaire bythe PMP 103. User 101 completes the questionnaire, which seeks tomeasure the ability of the user 101 to handle various forms ofinvestment risk by asking questions related to age, income, savings,savings rate, loss tolerance, investment experience/knowledge, purposeof investment, duration of investment, and preferences for size, styleand domicile of investment. The PMP 103 scores a the answers to thesequestions provided by the user 101 to determine a suitable, tailoredallocation recommendation 203. The allocation recommendation 203consists of recommendations of percentage investment in cash, fixedincome instruments and equities of domestic and foreign domicile. Theuser has the opportunity to customize this allocation recommendation indecision 204. If desired the user may enter a customization process 205in which he can alter the recommendation of the PMP 103. The user 101completes this process when he is finished with customization.

The equity portion of the allocation recommendation 203 will becomprised of a strategy recommendation 206, which is presented at theend of customization 205 or after the decision 204 if process 205 wasnot desired. Once again the customer is presented with a customizationoption 207. Here he has the ability to customize the strategyrecommendation itself This may happen before of after he has viewed thedetails of any particular strategy recommendation 210.

If the user 101 chooses to customize the strategy recommendation 206 oranswers no to the allocation recommendation decision 201, the PMP 103will display to the user 101 the plurality of strategies in process 208.At this point the user 101 may select one of the strategies 209 from theplurality and proceed to View Strategy Details process 210.

This View Strategy Details process is highlighted in FIG. 3. The user101 sees numerous aspects of the strategy she selected. She may view theselection methodology and related content as part of action 301.

In action 302 she may view various performance statistics, eitherhypothetical and/or historical related (depending on the strategy'smethodology and time since creation) related to this strategy. Forvarious durations (1 year, 3 year, 5 years, etc) and variousseasonalities (invest in January, February, etc) the user 101 may see astrategy's average annual return, standard deviation, Sharpe ratio,worst performance over a time subset (1 month, 1 year, 3 years, etc) ofa chosen duration (for example, a user 101 could see, for the mostrecent 10 years, the worst three-year rolling average performance), bestperformance over a time subset (1 month, 1 year, 3 years, etc) of herchosen duration, percentage of time subsets (1 month, 1 year, 3 years,etc.) of her chosen duration in which the strategy returned a negativeperformance (or alternately a performance less than a desired amount).

In addition to the values listed above, she may also compare thestrategy at various durations and seasonalities to a plurality ofbenchmarks and indexes. In doing so she may see the strategy's worstunderperformance relative to a benchmark over a time subset (1 month, 1year, 3 years, etc) of her chosen duration, percentage of time subsets(1 month, 1 year, 3 years, etc) of her chosen duration in which thestrategy under-performed a chosen benchmark (i.e.: a user 101 could seefor the most recent 20 years starting in January, the percentage ofrolling three-year time periods in that 20 year time period in which thestrategy under-performed a given benchmark), and correlation of thestrategy to the benchmark. Where appropriate, these figures couldalternatively be expressed to show the percentage of time in which astrategy failed to beat a benchmark by a given amount. Alternatively,this action could also show statistical measures such as R-squared,t-statistics, p-values, and similar measures. For all of the above itemsavailable as part of action 302, these statistics may be seen on a grossbasis or net of the costs of subscription to the PMP 103. Alternatively,these figures may be shown net of taxes, given plausible assumptions oftax rates, wash sale constraints and reduction of the portfolio to payestimated taxes.

In action 303 the user 101 may view hypothetical and/or historicalconstituents of the strategy that comprise the statistics seen in action302. The user may drill down to see the hypothetical and/or historicalreturns of a strategy, compared to a benchmark of her choice. If theuser 101 wishes, she may drill down yet again on any of these returns tosee the hypothetical/historical constituents that comprised thatstrategy return. Here the user 101 can see the stocks, their returns andthe weight of each stock in the portfolio that combined to yield thereturn listed. All of these figures will be listed for the plurality ofseasonality and duration choices available in action 302.

FIGS. 4A through 4C illustrate the kinds of things a user 101 could viewif he connects to the PMP computer 103 as he investigates the availablestrategies. FIGS. 4A though 4C illustrate some examples of ‘drill down’menus as a ‘performance-based’ investor might. The ‘performance-based’investor is interested mainly in the returns, and not necessarilyinterested in either a lot of theory or ‘hand-holding.’ At anotherpoint, the path taken by the newer investor is explored.

Referring now to FIG. 4A, a screen area 110 and mouse pointer 111 areshown. Screen area 110 shows the ranking of strategies so a‘performance-based’ investor can see how different strategies have beenranked based on their past performance. In screen area 110, we can seethat the best-performing strategy for a one-month period was 23.00% andthe fifth-best performing strategy returned 6.25% for the same period.FIG. 4B shows the mouse pointer 111 pointing at the duration area 112 ofscreen area 110. A pop-up menu 113 appears at the user signal (usually amouse click, but alternatively implemented as a ‘mouseover’ eventwithout a click).

An example of a ‘mouseover’ event can be seen in Microsoft Word 2000 andsimilar programs when one places the mouse pointer over a button on thetoolbar. Pointing at the “diskette” button for a few seconds causes thewords “Save (CTRL+S)” to appear on the screen. All menus and controlsare capable of being executed as standard mouse-click, secondarymouse-button click, or mouseover events as desired. The preferredembodiments use mouseover events for many of the ‘drill-down’ menuchoices.

As shown in FIG. 4C, when the user moves the mouse to pop-up menu 113and selects a different duration (one year), the data appearing inscreen area 110 changes to reflect the returns on those strategies.

The user, settling on one-year as the duration of interest, may theninvestigate what strategies performed to what levels. Referring now toFIG. 5A, the mouse pointer 111 points at the second strategy in thelist. A strategy-name pop-up menu 201 appears to the right showing thatthe second strategy in the list is named “Index Plus A.” Referring nowto FIG. 5B, the user slides the mouse pointer 101 to the right over aportion of strategy-name pop-up menu 201 and is rewarded with astrategy-description pop-up menu 202. Referring to FIG. 5C, the userslides the mouse pointer 101 to the right over a sample-holdings screenportion 203, and a sample-holdings pop-up menu 204 appears. Thesample-holdings pop-up menu 204 indicates a sample of the type ofsecurities purchased in accordance with that strategy.

Referring now to FIG. 5D, the sample-holdings pop-up menu 204 lists thestock “Best Buy” with a star. The star is optionally used to indicatestocks whose companies have paid a sponsorship fee for allowing a linkto information about the company, such as “Message from Best Buy topotential investors.”

Referring now to FIG. 5E, an alternate menu 205 allows the user a choiceof what year they would like to see a sample-holdings pop-up menu.

Referring now to FIG. 6A, an alternate drill-down menu 301 appears whenthe user clicks on the strategy name. The user is presented with achoice to explore holdings, model the portfolio under various marketconditions, or purchase the stocks in accordance with the strategy. FIG.6B shows a ‘drill-down’ through the model selection to the bull marketselection. The user is either presented with random data based on thestandard deviations of each of the holdings in each of the strategies oris provided with data similar to the 40-year historical results of thatindividual strategy. For example, in the bull market the best return was12.50% for one year, with a 10-year best year of 22.50%. This allows theuser to see what typical returns might be with this strategy and allowsthem to better gauge their own risk tolerance.

FIG. 6C shows a typical bear market results. Super-bull and super-bearwould present even wilder swings to the good and bad as appropriate. Theuser can re-calculate additional iterations of bull or bear markets byclicking in simulated data area 302. Referring to FIG. 6D, if the userwishes instead to see how the strategy would have performed basedexclusively the underlying historical data, the user can click in thehistorical data area 303.

In an embodiment shown in FIG. 6E, the choices for the modeling includea “sideways” or doldrums market, in addition to super-bull, bull, bear,and super-bear markets.

Referring now to FIG. 7, the user (having reviewed alternativestrategies as desired) clicks on purchase in alternate drill-down menu301.

FIG. 8 refers to the purchase process of a preferred embodiment of thepresent invention. The user decides whether to make a purchase or not atblock 501. If the user indicates that he would like to make a purchase,he decides whether or not to accept terms at block 502. Terms includeall of the legal disclaimers that desirably should be in place regardingtrading securities in this fashion.

In the event that the user decides not to make a purchase at block 501or decides to decline the terms at block 502, that results in the end503. End 503 alternately includes sending the user to a new pagecontaining a message about required terms, returns the user to the startpage, or returns the user to his exploration of various strategies.

If the user accepts terms at block 502, including all appropriatefinancial eligibility (e.g. credit card or other information regardingpayment), then a user account is created at block 506. Once the useraccount has been created, the user is prompted to indicate the amountthat the user would like to invest. The amount invested is debited by afirst fee and also by a second fee. The first fee is paid to the companygenerating the information to the user. The second fee is paid by anindependent broker depending on the arrangement between the company andthe user.

For example, if the user decides to invest $100,000 and the first fee is$29.95 and the second fee is $14.95, then the PMP subtracts those feesto get $99,955.10. This number is divided by the number of stocks in thefolio. For example, if there are 20 stocks in the folio, $4997.75 isallocated per stock in the strategy. If the market is open, real-timepricing is preferably used to generate how the ‘at-market’ portfoliolooks on a proposed portfolio sheet. The amount that the user decides toinvest is then used to help create a proposed portfolio sheet at block507.

Subscribers 109 (see FIG. 1C) may also view the current securityrecommendations of a strategy in action 304 (FIGS. 3 and 9), in additionto the actions granted to actions 301–303. These recommendations come asa result of applying the methodology of the strategy to the universe ofstocks declared in the strategy methodology to arrive at a list ofsecurities it recommends for purchase on any given day. While moststrategies will update the list as a part of action 304 on each day inwhich markets are open, some strategies will be designed to create alist of security recommendation less often.

As a part of this list, subscribers 109 will see various aspects of eachsecurity in the list of security recommendations including ticker, name,exchange, indicated current price of the security, indicated number ofshares to be purchased, and an adjusted indicated market value to beinvested each security. The indicated market value to be invested ineach stock is determined by the weight of the security in the strategyas determined by the strategy's methodology (i.e.: stocks may be equalweighted or weighted by market capitalization in the portfolio)multiplied by the amount the subscriber 109 indicates to invest in thestrategy. The indicated number of shares to be purchased is derived bydividing the indicated market value to be invested by the indicatedcurrent price of the security, and rounded to the nearest integer share(subject to the market value of the entire basket not exceeding theindicated amount to be invested by the subscriber 109). This rounding toan integer share amount, when multiplied by the indicated current pricecauses the rounded indicated market value in each security to bedifferent from the non-rounded indicated market value for each security.As a result the total amount that is indicated to be invested will beslightly less than the total amount indicated by the subscriber 109.

Table 1, below, shows how an abbreviated custom performance sheet looks.

TABLE 1 Abbreviated custom performance sheet Stock Ticker Price SharesCost 1 GUESS INC GES 12.688 394 $4,999.07 2 ALCOA AA 60.375 82 $4,950.753 SALTON INC SFP 49.000 102 $4,998.00 . . . 19 3M MMM 75.000 66$4,950.00 20 IBM IBM 125.000 40 $5,000.00 Total $99,591.29

Ideally, the total market value of the shares purchased should approachbut not exceed the total amount to be invested. Given the data fromTable 1, it appears that some $363 remains uninvested from the original$99,955. That is partly due to rounding problems. Rounding the number ofshares purchased to the nearest whole number more often will create theproblem of purchasing too much stock than some other method of rounding.O'Shaughnessy believes that some other method of rounding may suffice tomitigate this problem. Alternately, other methods used in the art may beemployed to create the balanced portfolio without purchasing too manyshares and without leaving too much money uninvested.

Alternatively, the PMP 103 could employ a method for fractional sharepurchases that would negate the need for such rounding as well as anydifference between the indicated amount to be invested as compared tothe amount declared by the subscriber 109.

At this point, the subscriber 109 has the opportunity to customize thelist of current security recommendations 304 that came as a result ofapplying the strategy recommendation 206 to the current universe ofstocks. This customization is highlighted in FIG. 9. Given the currentsecurity recommendations 304, the subscriber 109 may either customizethe list of security recommendations 205 or proceed with the basket asis. This is decision 401.

If she chooses to customize the list, she again has several options. Ifthe subscriber 109 does not want to invest in one of the listedsecurities (for instance, she is a socially responsible investor anddoes not with to invest in, e.g. Philip Morris, a tobacco company) shemay elect option 402 and have a security removed and replaced by the PMP103 with the stock which provides the next best fit as deemed by thestrategy recommendation 206/209.

Table 2 is a proposed portfolio sheet prior to customization.

TABLE 2 Proposed portfolio sheet. Stock Ticker 1 GUESS INC GES 2 ALCOAAA 3 SALTON INC SFP . . . 19 3M MMM 20 PHILIP MO MORRIS

Table 3 is a proposed portfolio sheet after the Philip Morris stock(stock no. 20) in the example above is replaced by the stock whichprovides the next best fit for the subject strategy, IBM in thisexample.

TABLE 3 User-revised proposed portfolio sheet. Stock Ticker 1 GUESS INCGES 2 ALCOA AA 3 SALTON INC SFP . . . 19 3M MMM 20 IBM IBM

The proposed portfolio sheet is optionally modified to show such factorsas market capitalization, industry, and other relevant columns ofinformation to assist the buyer in the decision to ‘pull the trigger.’Also, minimum, maximum, average and median market capitalization, shareprice, and other factors optionally are displayed as part of the summaryof the proposed portfolio.

Second, the subscriber 109 may elect option 403 in which she removesmembers of the security recommendations 304 as deemed by the strategyrecommendation 206/209 and replaces them with securities of her ownchoosing. Third, the subscriber 109 may elect to action 404 to removeany member of the security recommendations 304 without replacement, thusconcentrating the portfolio. The subscriber 109 may also elect action405 and add a stock of her own to the security recommendations withoutremoval of any security in the recommendation. Any action 402–405 willcause the PMP to display, and record agreement to, disclosure pertainingto how customization may alter the characteristics of strategyperformance she saw in action 302.

Once customizations 402 to 405 are complete or the subscriber 109chooses not to customize 401, the resulting group of securities becomesan ebasket 406 ready to transmit to a qualified broker. The PMP must nowvalidate the subscriber 109 as being a subscriber/account holder 114 toproceed with execution of the securities. This evaluation 407 wasdetailed in FIG. 1B. If the subscriber 109 is not also a subscriber andaccount holder 111, then the subscriber 109 may copy the contents of theebasket 406 and execute them outside of the PMP 103 as seen in terminalstate 408.

If the subscriber 109 is also a subscriber and account holder 114,execution will proceed as indicated in state 409, which is detailed inFIG. 10. The subscriber/account holder 114 must authorize the list oftransactions that result from execution of the ebasket 406 as listed indecision 501. A particular aspect of an ebasket is that thesubscriber/account holder 114 is simultaneously authorizing thetransaction of multiple securities, as opposed to trading themindividually. Upon authorization the PMP will perform multipleindividual transactions on behalf of the subscriber/account holder 114.If the subscriber/account holder 114 does not authorize thetransactions, the process ends at point 502.

If authorization is given in 501, the PMP 103 records this in additionto the desired transactions in its database 503, and subsequently queuesan order for the transactions with the broker in action 504. In asimplified representation, the broker receives the orders 505 andexecutes them in action 506. The PMP 103 receives confirmations ofexecutions from the broker 104 in action 507. The PMP 103 will notifythe subscriber/account holder of execution and confirmation.Alternatively, as shown in FIG. 1B, the Trading Services broker 2004 mayprovide reporting 2009 to the customer 2001.

Another embodiment for the execution of the portfolio purchased isdescribed in FIG. 11. Once the user has finalized the selections, theuser is asked whether she has an account at an online broker at block701. Assuming that she does have an account at an online broker, the PMPplaces a buy order, which is triggered by the user's action at block702. This preferably happens in real-time. Once the trade has beenexecuted, a custom performance sheet is generated to indicate that thetransaction has been completed. After the account has been created atblock 701, a first fee is optionally paid from the broker to theoperator of the present invention when a portfolio trade takes place atblock 702. Since the broker already has the user as a client, the firstfee is a pre-negotiated smaller fee than if the user was a new clientopening a new account with the broker.

Assuming that the user has no account (or wants to open a new accountwith a different broker), the PMP suggests one or more brokers. If thePMP is directing the client to a broker, a unique order form for openingthe brokerage account is generated, identifying the PMP as the portalthrough which the new client was generated so that the broker will agreewhen the user clicks through, to pay pre-specified amount of money toPMP for the placement of a new client.

When the PMP is listing the brokers, the PMP preferably generatesadditional revenues by selling ‘ad placement’ to brokers for prospectiveclients. Depending on the placement, frequency, and prominence of thelisting, the broker may pay a higher or lower fee. For example, ifE-Trade wished to be listed at the top of the list each time(alternately some percentage of the time) a customer was suggested achoice of brokers, E-Trade would pay a certain price for that privilege.Similarly, if E-Trade wished to be listed as the only broker with a‘banner ad,’ they would pay a certain price for that privilege.Alternately, the PMP is optionally set up to present the brokerages inorder of customer-satisfaction, low cost, or other schemes as marketinggurus might deem prudent. In any event, a larger pre-negotiated fee ispaid from the broker to the operator of the invention. For example,since many online brokerages have expenses that are about $200 to $400for each new account, a pre-negotiated fee of $100–300 is preferable. Asmarket conditions change, however, these numbers will vary accordingly.Also, to develop market share and ‘buy in’ from the brokers lower feesmay be charged to the brokers in accordance with the present invention.

Once the account is opened at a new broker at block 704, the user isqueried at block 705 whether they want their money automaticallyinvested when it is received by the broker. This is important because itmay take a little while for the user's money to be made available to thebroker since it may be sitting in a money market or since it may take aday or two for a bank transfer to be effective. If the user declines totake that option at block 705, it is preferred that the user's chosenproposed portfolio is saved so that the user can return to authorize thetrade once the money arrives at the broker. In a preferred embodiment,when the money is available to the broker an email notification isgenerated so that the user is informed that the funds are available forinvestment.

If the user does opt to have the money automatically invested at block705, then when the money is received at block 706, the portfolio ispurchased at block 702 as previously discussed.

Anyone who has ever owned stock knows that the mailed proxy statementcan generate an annoying amount of paperwork in which many investors arenot at all interested. The individual investor, now easily capable ofowning two to four portfolios of twenty stocks each, might be literallyburied in documents generated by those publicly traded companies. It isa feature of the present invention to offer to the user the choice ofwhether or not they would like an automatic vote of their proxy. Thiswould ensure a) their proxy was used to vote and b) they would not be onthe receiving end of the time-consuming paperwork generated by theirholdings.

Referring to Table 1, in a preferred embodiment, the custom performancesheet ties in with quote data (preferably real-time, but alternatelydelayed) to show the user the present performance of the portfolio. Theabbreviated custom performance sheet is optionally modified (by defaultand/or by a user) to show such factors as market capitalization,industry, and other relevant columns of information. Also, minimum,maximum, average and median market capitalization, share price, andother factors are optionally displayed as part of the summary of theportfolio. It is preferred that the user be able to customize the orderof the stocks, presentation of underlying factors (e.g. earningsestimates, price-to-cashflow; market capitalization), as well as beingable to sort on any of the underlying factors.

The subscriber/account holder 114 will see that results of the actionsin FIG. 10 from looking at an account maintenance section that isillustrated by block diagram in FIG. 13. In this area thesubscriber/account holder 114 may see various aspects of theirinvestments with a qualified broker 104 that have been facilitatedthrough the PMP 103. The subscriber/account holder 114 may view theperformance of her investments as a part of action 601. Here thesubscriber/account holder 114 may view either the performance of anyebasket 406 as a result of the strategy recommendation 206 in which sheinvested or may drill down to see them on an individual security level.The subscriber/account holder 114 will be able to see identifiers suchas ticker and company name as well as split adjusted purchase price,split adjusted shares held, split adjusted beginning market value,current price, current market value, dollar gain/loss, and percentagegain/loss over a variety of time periods including year to date, 1month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, since inception. In addition to atabular format, the subscriber/account holder 114 may view a graphicalrepresentation of the performance of ebasket 406 against a variety ofbenchmarks, over a variety of time periods (including year to date, 1month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, since inception).

It should be recalled that the security recommendations 304 come as aresult of applying the strategy recommendation 206 to the currentuniverse of securities, and that from FIG. 2 the strategy recommendationonly covered one aspect of an allocation recommendation 203 for thosewho desired the PMP 103 to provide a recommendation. Any investment incash or fixed income will also be listed in this performance section601.

Alternatively, the subscriber/account holder 114 may create views orcustom groupings of ebasktets 406 or individual securities and may seeperformance history on them, where applicable.

Subscriber/account holders 114 may also customize the members of anyheld list of security recommendations 304 by selling individual stocksor adding to the basket after purchase. This is done as part of action602, and purchases and sales are transacted on an individual securitylevel, as opposed to the purchase of an ebasket 406 where thesubscriber/account holder 114 authorizes the purchase of multiplesecurities simultaneously.

The subscriber/account holder 114 may also view news and other contentrelated to any of the securities they own or the market in general inaction 603. Alternatively, they could also review content on any stockplaced in a “watch list” to observe that they have not yet purchased.

The subscriber/account holder 114 may also view a list of historicaltransactions in action 604 which will detail all transaction relatedinformation over a time specified by subscriber/account holder 114.

FIGS. 12A, 12B and 12C are examples of screens that would be seen inthis way by customers of Netfolio, Inc.

Referring now to FIG. 14, at block 901 the live timepage is created forthat individual user that notes what investments were made and where.The timepage is preferably customizable by the user to show differentfields and allows the user to sort based on performance, market value,or other factors displayed onscreen.

An example timepage appears in Table 4.

TABLE 4 Sample timepage Today's date: Aug. 14, 1999 Portfolio Purchased:Jul. 20, 1999 Stock Ticker Price Now Shares Market Value Gain (Loss) 1GUESS INC GES 15.000 394 $5,910.00 $910.93 2 ALCOA AA 75.000 82$6,150.00 $1,199.25   3 SALTON INC SFP 45.000 102 $4,590.00 $(408.00) .. . 19 3M MMM 90.000 66 $5,940.00 $990.00 20 IBM IBM 144.000 40$5,760.00 $760.00 Total $113,400.00  $13,808.71  

The performance of the portfolio can be contrasted against particularindexes, mutual funds or other strategies over time so that the user cansee how their portfolio performs against other strategies. It ispreferred that the default indices that are presented are keyed into thetype of strategy initially selected by the user. For example, a 50% S&P500 and 50% Growth strategy would have displayed as a default both theS&P 500′ and the Growth strategy for comparison. As another example, aBig Cap Value portfolio would be listed with Berra Value and S&P 500Value for comparison. Referring back to FIG. 14, the user who selectsthe default at block 903 will have the PMP store the data to a new pagefor the user at block 904. The storage is preferably done on the remoteserver, but is optionally stored on the hard drive of the individualuser.

If the user prefers, the user may customize the benchmark page toinclude other information. In the example shown in Table 5, the user'sportfolio outperformed all of the other benchmarks except the fictionalMELJIM mutual fund.

TABLE 5 Sample benchmark page showing comparisons with indices andmutual funds. Today's date: Aug. 14, 1999 Portfolio Purchased: Jul. 20,1999 Stock Ticker Price Now Shares Market Value Gain (Loss) 1 GUESS INCGES 15.000 394  $5,910.00  $910.93 2 ALCOA AA 75.000 82  $6,150.00 $1,199.25 3 SALTON INC SFP 45.000 102  $4,590.00   $(408.00) . . . 193M MMM 90.000 66  $5,940.00  $990.00 20 IBM IBM 144.000 40  $5,760.00 $760.00 This portfolio $113,400.00 $13,808.71 S & P 500 $103,111.00 $3,519.71 292% NASDAQ $104,999.00  $5,407.71 155% GROWTH MF $109,800.00$10,208.71  35% MARBRI MF $111,000.00 $11,408.71  21% MELJIM MF$116,000.00 $16,408.71 −16%

Referring now to FIG. 15, the user may further enhance and alter theinformation presented in the benchmark page in block 1001. Hotlinks tonews items or press releases are one example of the type of informationthat can be added to the benchmark page. Table 6 shows a samplebenchmark page showing news.

TABLE 6 Sample benchmark page showing news. Today's date: Aug. 14, 1999Portfolio Purchased: Jul. 20, 1999 FYI Stock Ticker Price Now SharesMarket Value Gain (Loss) 4997.75 News GUESS INC GES 15.000 394 $5,910.00  $910.93 333.1833 News ALCOA AA 75.000 82  $6,150.00 $1,199.25 66.63667 SALTON INC SFP 45.000 102  $4,590.00   $(408.00)111.0611 . . . News 3M MMM 90.000 66  $5,940.00  $990.00 55.53056 IBMIBM 144.000 40  $5,760.00  $760.00 34.7066 This portfolio $113,400.00$13,808.71 S & P 500 $103,111.00  $3,519.71 292% NASDAQ $104,999.00 $5,407.71 155% GROWTH MF $109,800.00 $10,208.71  35% MARBRI MF$111,000.00 $11,408.71  21% MELJIM MF $116,000.00 $16,408.71 −16%

At any time the user views the sample benchmark page, the user may makechanges to it.

Referring to FIG. 15 at block 1002, a user is preferably queried aboutwhether or not the user would like email notification if any stockdrops. The user is given the option to select one or more stocks and toset up a percentage drop after which the user would like to be notified.For example, the user may decide that he wants to be notified if ALCOAdrops more than 5%, but for IBM and 3M the user has more tolerance forvolatility and therefore wants to be notified in the event of a 10%drop. After confirming each of the percentages for each stock, the PMPthereafter verifies the user's email address at block 1003.

Lastly, the subscriber/account holder 114 may elect to rebalance hislist of security recommendations 304 for a particular strategyrecommendation 206 in action 605. Rebalancing is the process ofperiodically reviewing a subscriber/account holder's ebasket 406 andrenewing its contents not only to the current list of securityrecommendations 304 at the time of rebalance, but also re-weighting themin the manner proscribed by the strategy recommendation 206/209 fromwhich it is based, but also re-weighting them in the manner proscribedby the strategy methodology 301. This rebalancing is an aspect of thestrategy's methodology, and all performance information 302 regardingthe strategy recommendation 206 requires rebalancing at a specifiedinterval of time (usually one year).

This process is detailed in FIGS. 16A and 16B. The PMP 103 will sendnotification 701, preferably by email, to a subscriber/account holder114 invested in an ebasket 406 derived from a strategy recommendation206 roughly 2 weeks before her recommended rebalance is due with areminder of the upcoming event. The notification 701 will recommend thesubscriber/account holder 114 to retake the Profiling process 202 ifthere have been any changes in her life that would alter her financialneeds (i.e.: addition to family, lost income, etc.).

At the proper time, the subscriber/account holder 114 must choosewhether or not to rebalance the ebasket 406 following a particularstrategy recommendation 206 in decision 702. If she elects not torebalance, the ebasket 406 remains untouched and the rebalancing processends in state 703.

If the subscriber/account holder 114 elects to rebalance in decision702, the PMP will then renew/revise recommendations in action 704. Here,the PMP will display a new allocation recommendation 203 based upon thelast profile generated by the subscriber/account holder if one existsand asks the subscriber/account holder 114 if she wishes to update herprofile. If one does not exist, she will be asked if she wishes to takeone, similar to decision 201.

Again, the subscriber/account account holder 114 may customize herallocation recommendation 204 and/or strategy recommendation 206 atdecision 705, which is functionally equivalent to decisions 204 and 207.If she chooses to customize either recommendation, thesubscriber/account holder repeats steps 205 and 208–209 to customize herrecommendations and arrive at a new strategy recommendation 206.

Once the subscriber/account holder 114 has completed customization 706,or if she declined to customize, the PMP103 will then compare theattributes (securities and the weight of each security in the portfolio)of her existing ebasket 406 (which is the product of applying thestrategy recommendation to a market universe sometime in the past) tothe attributes of the current security recommendations 304 that are theoutput of applying the strategy recommendation 206 to current marketconditions. This is comparison 707.

As the result of this comparision, the PMP 103 will generate a list oftransactions that will transform the existing/old ebasket 406 to thecurrent list of security recommendations 304. This is transaction 708.Hypothetically, DELL resides in the ebasket 406, but has appreciatedover the year to the point that its weight in the exisiting ebasket 406is 40% of the whole. The current security recommendations 304 as aresult of applying the strategy recommendation 206 to the currentuniverse suggests that DELL should remain in the new ebasket but haveonly a 10% weighting to the whole. The PMP as a result of the comparison707 will generate a transaction for DELL in action 708 sufficient toreduce its weight in the new ebasket to roughly 10%. In the event thatDELL was not recommended by the current security recommendations 304,the PMP 103 would have generated as part of its transaction list 708,sufficient transaction to liquidity the DELL holding in its entirety.

As in places before, the subscriber/account holder 114 has theopportunity to customize the recommended list of transactions 708 thatwill rebalance the existing ebasket 406 into the new one. This isdecision 709, which is equivalent to 401. If the subscriber/accountholder 114 elects to customize process 710, which provides her with alloptions available in actions 402 to 405 upon current list of securityrecommendations 304. Doing so will cause the PMP to re-enter the compare707 and develop transactions 708 actions.

When subscriber/account holder 114 has completed all desiredcustomization 710, or if customization was declined at decision 709, thesubscriber/account holder 114 must authorize the resulting transactionlist 708. This authorization is the same as decision 501, and willrestart the process shown in FIG. 10. In the event that the strategyrecommendation 206 followed by the subscriber/account holder 114authorizes a rebalance 702 in accordance with that annual time period,then the PMP will sell all losers on or slightly before the one yearanniversary of the purchase of the existing/old list of securityrecommendations 304 so as to harvest losses (where not negated by washsale rules) against gains, and will sell the gains at one day after aone-year anniversary of the purchase of the existing/old list ofsecurity recommendation 304 so as to achieve the tax benefits of longterm capital gains, she will authorize the list of transaction 705 inprocess 706. This will restart the execution process detailed in FIG.10.

In the event that the strategy recommendation 206 followed by thesubscriber/account holder 114 prescribes an annual rebalance, and thesubscriber/account holder 114 authorizes a rebalance 702 in accordancewith that annual time period, then the PMP will sell all losers. Thestock being replaced preferably is sold at a time when it might achievethe best tax advantage. For instance, loser stocks may be sold on orslightly before the one-year anniversary of the purchase of theexisting/old list of security recommendations 304 so as to harvestlosses against gains (where not negated by wash sale rules). Also,stocks that gained may be sold one day after a one-year anniversary ofthe purchase of the exiting/old list of security recommendation 304 soas to achieve the tax benefits of long term capital gains.

In another preferred embodiment, in FIG. 15 at block 1004, the user isqueried whether he would like to receive notification about rebalancingtheir portfolio.

Tt is contemplated as part of the present invention that the owner ofthe PMP may optionally be enabled as an online broker. In that instance,the online broker functions would not be distributed across multipleentities. The user would connect to the Internet and then connectdirectly to the PMP owner-broker. Even when the PMP owner-broker has thecapabilities to do the trades, there may still be advantages to allowinga user with an account at a different online broker with whom they arecomfortable (or for simplified accounting and money management) to keeptheir funds in that other online broker.

It is contemplated by the present invention for the user to individuallyreview each of the component strategies available at PMP and create outof such strategies his own unique portfolio in which he decides toinvest after reviewing the historical performance data from PMP'sdatabase. For example, a sophisticated investor may decide to make acomposite custom portfolio based on the top 5 stocks from each of 3different strategies. Table 7 illustrates the choices.

TABLE 7 Top 5 Stocks from Growth, Index A, Tech Index Plus. GROWTH INDEXA TECH INDEX PLUS WMT MO MSFT MSFT DD DELL T F CSCO HD FTU CREE BBY X LU

The investor decides to ‘tweak’ the choices a bit. MSFT (Microsoft)appears in two columns and would be ‘double-weighted’ in this portfolio.Since the investor already has some Microsoft stock, he eliminates itfrom the Tech Index Plus in favor of the sixth stock in that strategy,IBM (IBM). The investor looks at the Index A which includes PhillipMorris (MO), Dupont (DD), Ford (F), First Union (FTU), and U.S. Steel(X). The investor dislikes U.S. Steel (X) and eliminates that stock infavor of Merck (MRK). See Table 8.

TABLE 8 Top 5 Stocks from Growth, Index A, Tech Index Plus. GROWTH INDEXA TECH INDEX PLUS WMT MO DELL MSFT DD CSCO T F CREE HD FTU LU BBY MRKIBM

Had the investor attempted to buy these stocks at a traditional brokerwith a $50 fee per stock, the investor would have spent $750 to acquirethis portfolio. Assuming a $60,000 investment, that's a sizable expense,especially compared with a one-time charge of $30 or $60 to acquire thesame portfolio through the present invention. Assuming hypothetically a$60 price for this well-diversified portfolio, that's a cost of 0.001.Assuming a cost of $750 for the same purchase by broker, that's a costof 0.0125. Assuming a cost of $14.95 per trade that is still $224.25 or0.00373.

A $10,000 investment at 11% for 40 years is worth around $650,000 whilethe same investment at 12% for 40 years is worth around $930,000.Percentages add up, especially when they work against you coming ANDgoing. A $10,000 investment at 13% for 40 years is more than $1,327,000:almost double the aforementioned return on 11%. The price advantage ofthe present invention can be leveraged with each transaction that takesadvantage of the lower cost and efficiency.

It is contemplated that annual rebalancing of portfolios may take place.As has been discussed, it is often helpful to sell “losers” before theexpiry of one year so the loss may be counted against ordinary income.While it would be preferred that the selling of the “losers” would alsobe a basket trade executed by the user (or agent) with a special ordergenerated by the PMP, it is not likely that independent brokers willallow those trades at the steep discount provided by the PMP. However,the “winners” would preferably be sold in that fashion, and the newreplacement stocks would also be obtained through the PMP to keeptrading costs down.

Another aspect of the present invention is an automated method ofselecting stocks that allows for the cloning of mutual funds, accountmanagers, or any other equity portfolio to derive an investmentportfolio. Referring now to FIG. 17 in a preferred embodiment, the userenters the ticker symbol of the fund the user wants to clone. Softwareis used to access the individual components of the fund based onpercentage of total assets. For example: The program will access theindividual holdings of the fund based on percentage of total assets. Forexample, Microsoft, AOL, Amazon, Cisco, Pfizer, Coke, GE, Best Buy, etc.The software implementing the present invention will than analyze theportfolio across all factors, such as price-to-earnings ratio,price-to-book ratio, earnings growth rate, book value growth rate,dividend yield, market capitalization, etc. Any generic database such asS&P Compustat, Value Line, Marketguide, etc. can be used for the datafeed. The underlying factor profile is than contrasted with the samefactor for the market as a whole. For example, one might find that theaverage PE for this portfolio is 10 whereas it is 33 for the generalmarket. That makes it a significant factor that defines the fund's (orfund manager's) unique style. One might also find that the marketcapitalization of the average stock in the fund is $22 Billion, comparedwith $10 Billion for the average stock. Each factor is compared with theaverage and median for the market and sorted by greatness of difference.For further background, see O'Shaughnessy's book Invest Like the Best(McGraw-Hill 1994) especially Chapter 3, incorporated herein byreference.

The factors are ranked in the order by which the fund most deviates fromthe market to create screens as in FIG. 17. For example, PE is 70% lowerthan the market; market capitalization is 120% higher, etc. The user isthen invited to allow a backtest or to customize from the underlyingfactors. For example, the user might note the sales increase for theprevious year is one of the largest deviations, but not want to use itas the criteria for his backtest and he could optionally remove thatcriteria.

Once the user has selected either the program's selected criteria or hiscustomized version thereof, the program then backtests the selectioncriteria on historical data. For example, if the resultant criteriawere:

1. PE<Market average;

2. Earnings gains>1.5 times the market average;

3. Earnings higher than in the previous year;

4. Price appreciation set high to get just 10, 15, 20 or 25 stocks.

The program would then run that set of criteria in each year for thelast 30 years, gather the stocks which meet these specific criteria intoan individual portfolio; hold the portfolio for the specified holdingperiod (3, 6, 9, 12, or more months) and then calculate the return ofeach stock and over all portfolio return. The program will then providethe results of the backtest to the user The program will than inquire ifthe user would like to see the stocks which currently meet the testedcriteria.

The user is shown the stocks that meet the criteria as of that day'sdate. The user is asked if he/she wishes to invest in the portfolio (astaught herein).

Referring now to FIG. 18A, the user starts with a rating service 1401which is one of the mutual fund, private investment management, UnitInvestment Trust, and other rating services commonly available such asMorningstar, Lipper, S&P Micropal, etc. Within each rating service, ascheme 1402 has been devised to group funds based on some criteria. Whenthe user selects one of the schemes, the top holdings (for example 10,25, or 50) of the funds in that group are presented in a list forconsideration for investment as discussed herein.

Using the Morningstar database as an example, we would run a computersort seeking all the funds that were included in its Domestic equityLarge Growth category. On a recent sort, we discover that 497 funds areincluded in that category. Next, we look at all of the fund's individualequity holdings, and sort them based on how widely held each security iswithin the category. We next list them in declining order, listing themost widely held security first and so on—

1. Microsoft

2. Cisco Systems

3. Pfizer

4. Intel

5. MCI/Worldcom

6. Home Depot

7. EMC

8. GE

9. American International Group

10. Schering-Pluugh

11. Lucent

12. AOL

13. Wal-mart

14. Merck

15. Warner-Lambert

etc.

The user is queried to see if he/she wishes to invest in the top 10, 15,20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50 stocks and whether he/she wishes to removeany of the individual names (as taught elsewhere herein).

Referring now to FIG. 18B, the user starts with a rating service 1501and selects one of the other ratings service categories such as hightechnology, internet, biotechnology, or specialty-health. A examplequery of specialty health generates the following list of widely heldissues:

1. Warrner-Lambert

2. Medtronic

3. Amgen

4. Merck

5. Pfizer

6. Eli Lilly

7. Cardinal Health

8. Guident

9. Schering-Plough

10. Bristol-Myers Squibb

11. Pharmacia Upjohn

12. American Home Products

13. Johnson&Johnson

14. Medimune

15. Biogen

etc.

Each rating services has a different preferred methodology for groupingfunds. From the final groupings it is preferred to aggregate all of thestock holdings of all the funds in that category.

Morningstar defines its own Style Boxes as:

“The equity style box is a nine-box matrix that displays both the fund'sinvestment methodology and the size of the companies in which itinvests. Combining these two variables offers a broad view of a fund'sholdings and risk.

“The Equity Style box for domestic-stock funds comprises two components:market capitalization on the vertical axis and valuation on thehorizontal axis. Market Capitalization: Morningstar ties market cap tothe relative movements of the market. The top 5% of the 5000 largestdomestic stocks in Morningstar's equity database are classified aslarge-cap, the next 15% of the 5000 are mid-cap, and the remaining 80%(as well as companies that fall outside the largest 5000) are small-cap.

Morningstar then determines a fund's market cap by ranking the stocks ina fund's portfolio from the largest market-capitalized stock to thesmallest, and then calculating the average weighted marketcapitalization of the stocks in the middle quintile (middle 40thpercentile to 60th percentile) of the portfolio. After a fund's marketcap has been determined, Morningstar places the fund in the large-cap,mid-cap, or small-cap group (noted above). Valuation: Morningstarcategorizes funds by comparing the stocks in their portfolios with themost relevant of the three market-cap groups. Specifically, each stockin our equities database receives a price-to-earnings (P/E) score and aprice-to-book (P/B) score. This is derived by dividing each stock's P/Eand P/B by the asset-weighted median P/E and asset-weighted median P/B(respectively) of the stock's market cap group. For example, tocalculate the asset-weighted median P/E, we first rank the P/E ratios ofthe stocks in each market-cap group from highest to lowest, then countdown by their market caps until we reach the 50th percentile of thatmarket-cap group. The P/E ratio attached to that stock is theasset-weighted median P/E. We do the same to find the asset-weightedmedian P/B. (We do not calculate these figures for internationalstocks.)

Next, we calculate the P/E Style Box Score and the P/B Style Box Scorefor each fund by ranking the stocks in a fund's portfolio by their P/EScores and P/B Scores, respectively, and then calculating an averageweighted P/E score and an average weighted P/B score from the stocks inthe middle quintile of each fund's portfolio. (International stocks areagain not included in this calculation.) These average weighted scoresare the P/E Style Box Score and the P/B Style Box Score of the fund'sportfolio.

For each measure, 1.00 represents the market-cap group average. If thefund has a P/E Style Box score+P/B Style Box Score that exceeds 2.25,the fund is categorized as growth. If the combined score falls below1.75, the fund is categorized as value. Finally, if the score is between1.75 and 2.25, the fund is categorized as blend. Generally speaking, agrowth-oriented portfolio will mostly contain companies that itsportfolio manager believes have the potential to increase earningsfaster than the rest of the market. A value orientation, on the otherhand, focuses on stocks that the manager thinks are currentlyundervalued in price and believes will eventually see their worthrecognized by the market. A blend fund will mix the two philosophies:The portfolio may contain growth stocks and value stocks, or it maycontain stocks that exhibit both characteristics.”

FIG. 19 is a program in Java representing how an Aggregator function maybe used to select stocks in the PMP as represented in multiplestrategies.

While the above provides a full and complete disclosure of the preferredembodiments of this invention, equivalents may be employed withoutdeparting from the true spirit and scope of the invention. Such changesmight involve alternate databases, processes, criteria, structuralarrangement, capacities, sizes, operational features, reports or thelike. Therefore the above description and illustrations should not beconstrued as limiting the scope of the invention, which is defined bythe appended claims.

We claim:
 1. An integrated computer-driven system by which a userconnected to a global computer network may invest in financialsecurities, comprising: a. means for transmitting to said user's displaya plurality of strategies, said strategies being quantitativemethodologies of security selection from a universe of securities, in amanner by which the user may interact with the system in a self-directedmanner whereby the user may view at the user's discretion descriptiveinformation including selection methodology, community discussion,community chats, and/or community polls regarding each strategy; b.means for transmitting to said user's display performance figurespertaining to each strategy since its inception against a preferredbenchmark; c. means for permitting said user to view a basket offinancial securities for each of the plurality of strategies, whereineach basket of financial securities includes an ordered list ofsuggested financial securities and a number of shares to be purchased ofeach the suggested financial securities; d. means for receiving fromsaid user a selection of one of the plurality of strategies and forpermitting said user to add securities to or remove securities from saidordered list of suggested financial securities of the selected strategyand to replace any security on said ordered list of the selectedstrategy with a next ordinal replacement suggested by the strategy; ande. means for facilitating said user to purchase said ordered list ofsuggested financial securities in weights prescribed by the basket offinancial securities of the selected strategy or the user'scustomizations in an amount of the user's choosing through a qualifiedbroker.
 2. The system of claim 1, further comprising means whereby saiduser may monitor performance, news and research of the user'sinvestments.
 3. The system of claim 1, further comprising means wherebysaid user may periodically rebalance the user's holdings into updatedrecommendations of that strategy or another strategy which resides inthe system.
 4. The system of claim 1, further comprising means by whichthe user pays a flat fee in consideration for this service.
 5. Thesystem of claim 1, further comprising means by which the user pays anasset-based fee in consideration for this service.
 6. The system ofclaim 1, wherein the user's display is connected to a global computernetwork.
 7. The system of claim 1, further comprising means forquestioning the user to obtain a profile of the user and means forsupplying a profile product to said user, said profile product beingdeemed suitable to the user by the results of said questioning.
 8. Thesystem of claim 1, further comprising means for supplying the user withthe recommendations of an active manager in place of a quantitativemethodology for selecting stocks.
 9. The system of claim 1, furthercomprising means by which the user may customize the suggested list of astrategy for individual purchase by replacing one of the securities witha stock of the user's choosing.
 10. The system of claim 1, furthercomprising means for transmitting to said user's display hypothetical orhistorical performance of a strategy over a plurality of observationperiods.
 11. The system of claim 1, further comprising means fortransmitting to said user's display hypothetical or historicalperformance of a strategy over a plurality of benchmarks.
 12. The systemof claim 1, further comprising means for said user to create and investin the user's own strategy through testing user-defined strategiesbackwards in time and observing their hypothetical performance ascompared to a plurality of benchmarks.
 13. The system of claim 1,further comprising means for said user to create and invest in theuser's own strategy which is an allocation of other strategies on thesystem, including those derived from the recommendations of an activemanager.
 14. A computer system allowing said user to invest at one timein a basket of stocks, said computer system comprising: a web siteaccessible to said user via an interactive communication channel; saidweb site displaying interactively a plurality of investment strategies,each strategy representing a quantitative methodology for selectingparticular stocks; said web site being linked to a database whereby saiduser may interact therewith to examine hypothetical or historicalperformance results pertaining to each of said plurality of investmentstrategies since their inceptions against preferred benchmarks; said website being designed to permit said user to view a stock list suggestedby each of said plurality of investment strategies; said web site beingdesigned to receive from said user a selection of one of said pluralityof investment strategies, and said web site further being designed torecommend to said user to purchase stocks on the stock list of theselected investment strategy and recommend a number of shares to bepurchased thereof; said web site being designed to receive from saiduser an indicator designating whether said user wishes to purchase allstocks on said stock list of the selected investment strategy or makechanges to said stock list or the number of shares to be purchasedthereof, where the changes to said stock list are made by adding atleast one stock to the stock list, subtracting least one stock from thestock list, or replacing one or more stocks from the stock list withadditional stocks suggested by the selected investment strategiesstrategy or other stock selected by said user; said web site beingdesigned to permit said user to view said stock list of said selectedinvestment strategy after additions, subtractions and replacements, ifany, are made, and determine if said user wishes to purchase all stocksaccording to particular stock weights recommended by said selectedinvestment strategy or make changes to suggested weights, where changesare made by increasing or decreasing stocks' weight in the stock list asdesired by said user; and said web site being designed to facilitatesaid user to purchase said list of stocks of the selected investmentstrategy according to the stock list after additions, subtractions,replacements, if any, and changes in weight, if any, are made.
 15. Thecomputer system of claim 14, wherein said web site also provides thecapability to allow said user to monitor stocks in a final stock list byreviewing their performance, news about them or researching them. 16.The computer system of claim 14, wherein said web site also provides thecapability to allow said user to periodically reevaluate said user'sstock holdings and make changes according to changes in therecommendations of the one said investment strategy, said user's changedcircumstances or said user's changed tax situation.
 17. The computersystem of claim 14, wherein: said user is a customer of a provider ofsaid computer system; said customer maintains an account with a tradingservices provider; said customer's stocks are held by a custodialservices provider; and said system further comprising: means forcommunicating between said provider of said computer system; and saidtrading services provider so that trades can be executed on behalf ofsaid customer; and means for communicating between said provider of saidcomputer system and said custodial services provider so that saidprovider of said computer system is currently updated on the status ofsaid user's stock holdings.
 18. The computer system of claim 14, whereinsaid web site also provides the capability of permitting said user toselect a mutual fund, account manager or other equity portfolio whosestock holdings said user wishes to clone; and said computer systemfurther comprising software to run said computer system to access theindividual components of said mutual fund based on percentage of totalassets; to provide analysis of said individual components' variousfactors to create a factor profile; to compare said factor profile withsame factors for entire stock market to determine which factors deviatedmost from market factors; to backtest or customize factors that make upsaid factor profile; to use said factor profile and results ofbacktesting and customization to create portfolio of stocks; and saidweb site further comprising means for said user to purchase saidportfolio of stocks.
 19. The computer system of claim 14, furthercomprising: software for determining the best time for said user to sellstocks said user has decided to remove from portfolio so as to maximizetax benefits to said user.
 20. The computer system of claim 14, furthercomprising: said web site having the capability of permitting said userto purchase all stocks in said user's portfolio at once so as to avoidseparate trade costs for each stock purchase.
 21. The computer system ofclaim 14, further comprising: software that allows said user to reviewvarious investment strategies available at said web site and create outof said investment strategies said user's own unique portfolio.
 22. Amethod by which a computer system having a display and means to interactwith a user facilitates investment by said user in a basket of financialsecurities, comprising the following steps: a. displaying to said user aplurality of strategies, said strategies being quantitativemethodologies of security selection from a universe of securities, in amanner by which the user may interact with the system in a self-directedmanner whereby the user may view at the user's discretion descriptiveinformation including selection methodology, community discussion,community chats, and or community polls regarding each strategy; b.displaying to said user performance figures pertaining to each strategysince its inception against a preferred benchmark; c. permitting saiduser to view an ordered list of suggested financial securities of eachstrategy and then to select one of the plurality of strategies; d.displaying to said user a recommendation to purchase the suggestedfinancial securities of the selected investment strategy and arecommendation of a number of shares to be purchased thereof; e.permitting said user to add securities to or remove securities from thelist of suggested financial securities of the selected strategy and toreplace any security from the list of suggested financial securities ofthe selected strategy with the next ordinal replacement suggested by theselected strategy; and f. facilitating said user to purchase suggestedfinancial securities of the selected strategy in weights prescribed bythe selected strategy or the user's customizations in an amount of saiduser's choosing through a qualified broker.